“And what about fuel?” asked Cormac. “Surely this little thing can’t carry enough to take us to America?”
“It is powered by NASA nuclear energy.”
Cormac looked at Kate, who for the first time in ages was smiling. She nodded at him.
“Let’s do it, Kristjan!” shouted Cormac.
“You guys sleep. I wake you before we arrive.”
Kate lay back and shut her eyes, sighing. But Cormac looked out at the night sky, catching sight of the moon passing behind a cloud. They could do this. They’d stolen a sword from a heavily guarded medieval fortress, so surely they could rescue their friend.
He looked through the side of his capsule to see Kate now fast asleep. Her chest rose and fell with her breathing. She looked so calm.
Overwhelmed with tiredness, Cormac lay back on the cushion and closed his eyes.
Kate awoke to the sound of the TV blaring over her head. “The US Army has formed a defensive perimeter around most American tourist attractions. Much of New York City has been evacuated, and a curfew is in place for all residents. We now go live—”
The TV muted and Kristjan’s voice came through the speaker. “Awake now?”
In his capsule beside her, Cormac yawned and smiled. Kate looked through the floor of her pod and was amazed to see land beneath them. Tiny lights burned in houses, and traffic headlights moved through the predawn streets.
“Where are we?”
“Over Philadelphia,” said Kristjan. “ETA: five minutes.”
“Five minutes!”
“Why didn’t you wa—?”
Cormac was cut off by Kristjan. “No time for questions. Listen to me carefully. This is no-fly zone, so we go in and out quick—no landing. I drop you in river.”
“What do you mean, drop us?” asked Kate.
“Pods are designed to drop in water. They travel underwater using sonar to avoid obstacles. Then they rise to surface. Red button above your head will open pod. You can swim, yes?”
Kate and Cormac looked at each other anxiously, and both answered, “Yes.”
“OK. You swim to riverbank.”
Through the pod, the New York City skyline approached rapidly.
Kate felt a scratching in her pocket. Savage! She took him out and placed him on the cushion.
His whiskers tickled her nose. “Hungry I am.”
Kate smiled nervously. “How did I know you were going to say that?”
Savage joined her in gazing through the floor of the capsule at the New York City rooftops sailing by. She glanced at Cormac. He winked, but his eyes showed he was just as apprehensive as her. The aircraft dived down, until the dark waters of the Hudson River were all that could be seen through the base of the pod.
“Where will you go, Kristjan?” asked Kate.
“I don’t know. But I will be OK. Good luck.”
Kate gripped the foam cushion beneath her chin. She heard a click and suddenly she was in the sky, her stomach lurching with the drop. A surge of panic raced through her body. Please God, don’t let me die.
Kate crashed forward as the pod hit the water, cracking her head against the front of the capsule. She pushed her face away from the Perspex, sliding back along her cushion. Savage squeaked in terror as the pod sank into darkness. Bubbles and little bits of debris raced past the nose of the pod. A whirring noise alerted her to some mechanical device in the rear of the craft. The pod veered sharply to one side, narrowly missing an algae-encrusted shopping cart.
She blinked a drop of perspiration from her eye. The tiny pill-shaped container started to decelerate and rise in the water, heading for the surface. Steadily it climbed toward the greenish light, finally breaking the surface.
The sky was still dark, but a muted cerise along the Manhattan skyline announced the approaching sunrise. She hit the red button above her head and, with a hydraulic hiss, the roof slid back. Cold water lapped over the side, spurring her into action. She scooped up Savage and knelt in the tiny boat, feeling the cool breeze on her face.
“You need to go inside my mask so you won’t drown,” Kate said to Savage.
Fumbling with her hood, she pulled out the mask. She dropped Savage into it before sealing it around her face. Nearby, Cormac’s pod pitched and bobbed in the waves of the river. More water spilled into the pod. Worried that she’d get caught in the sinking shell, Kate stood. She listened for the reassuring fizz of oxygen in her mask before diving into the river.
She swam for the riverbank with Savage clinging to her nose. At the water’s edge she dragged herself out of the river and pulled off her mask and hood. Savage crawled out onto her chest. She lay on her back and gasped for breath.
Savage sniffed the air. “Happened what?”
Kate managed a smile. “Good question.”
She heard splashing nearby.
Cormac clambered out of the water, pulled off his mask, and rolled down his hood. “You OK?”
Kate nodded, but she didn’t feel it. She wondered why she wasn’t excited about being back home. Maybe it was because of the task that lay ahead of them. Or maybe it was because this wasn’t really her home anymore—Renkondo was.
Cormac looked at the sky, which was already brightening. The pink line on the horizon had soaked up into the sky, silhouetting the New York City skyline. “How long until sunrise?”
Kate pocketed the mouse and stood. “I don’t know, but not long.”
“Lead the way, New Yorker.”
Kate smiled and nodded, and together they ran through the ornamental gardens by the river, then followed a path to stone steps leading up to the highway. On her way up, she heard something she’d never heard in New York City before: silence.
At the top of the steps, the highway, which normally buzzed with traffic, day and night, was empty and silent. A few cars lay abandoned in the middle of the road. The hazard lights flashed on one and a radio blared through its open door.
She looked at Cormac, who just shook his head.
Spurred on by a new sense of urgency, she crossed the highway, heading for the office buildings in the distance. In the gardens across the road, they raced along paths, past empty benches and silent playgrounds.
On West Sixty-Sixth Street, she expected some life, but there was nothing. All stores and businesses had their shutters down, windows were blacked out, and the street was empty. She stopped in the middle and scanned her surroundings. Somewhere a dog barked, but otherwise there was only eerie silence. At a fourth-floor window she saw a curtain twitch, and a tiny face appeared at the glass. The child smiled and waved down at Kate before being pulled away.
When they turned onto Broadway, they heard the rumble of a truck.
“Get down!” said Cormac, crouching behind a subway entrance.
Kate hunkered down beside him. “What is it?”
He pointed at a khaki-colored armored car rolling by on the opposite side of the street. An armed soldier stood in the roof hatch of the vehicle, surveying the streets.
“We’ll be arrested if we’re seen,” said Cormac.
“Or shot,” added Kate.
She glanced at the sky again before continuing down Broadway. She ran side by side with Cormac down the vacant street, glad now of all the training she’d done with the Bear. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It was hard to imagine Renkondo gone, and perhaps the Bear too, and who knew how many others—Makoto, Chloe, Shan … She forced the thoughts from her mind. She could do nothing to help those people. But she could help Ghost.
They passed the corner of Central Park and crossed over Columbus Circle, continuing down Broadway past towering skyscrapers whose glass facades reflected an orange glow in the sky. It was weird seeing one of the busiest streets in the city deserted.
She thought she saw movement ahead and stopped running.
“What is it?” asked Cormac.
“Give me your binocs.”
Cormac fished them out of his shōzoku and handed them over.
Throu
gh the zoomed lens she saw that the street ahead was completely blocked with tanks, jeeps, and armored cars. US soldiers manned the barricade, their weapons all pointing in her direction.
She handed the binocs to Cormac. “Take a look. On the news they said parts of the city had been completely evacuated. Nobody’s getting in!”
“Let’s try another street.”
Kate nodded and they turned off Broadway and ran to Seventh Avenue.
Cormac peered through the binocs again. “It’s blocked too.”
Kate looked up at the sky. “It’s nearly time, Cormac. What’ll we do?”
Cormac scanned the soaring towers of glass and steel. “I could get in.”
Kate didn’t want him to go alone, but what choice did they have? There was no time to do anything else. She nodded.
“Get off the streets,” said Cormac, detaching the comm from his hood and fixing it to his ear. “Find somewhere to hide. I’ll keep in touch.”
Again she nodded.
Cormac looked at her and smiled. “Go!” he said, using the sword to point down the street.
There was nothing else she could do. Kate turned and jogged away from Times Square. She stopped after a few steps and looked back to say good-bye, but Cormac was already gone.
She continued up Seventh Avenue, trying not to think about the momentous task that lay ahead of Cormac. He was putting his own life in extreme danger to rescue their friend, and even if he did manage to trade the sword for Ghost, who knew what terrible deeds Goda would do with his new weapon? Were they saving one friend at the cost of thousands of lives? Millions, even?
She stopped running and jumped behind a parked van. Up ahead, another armored car crossed in front of her. She knew the army was there to protect the city, but this didn’t make her feel safe. As she wondered what to do, she heard a whisper nearby.
“Psst!”
From the doorway of the hotel beside her, a lady with a bandanna tied around her head looked out. “Get off the street, girl.”
Kate ran over to her. “Where’s a good place to hide?”
The woman eyed Kate from head to toe and laughed. “What are you, a ninja?”
Kate smiled. “Yeah, something like that.”
The woman looked up and down the street before opening the door wide. “Come in.”
Cormac crept down a side street and peered around the corner at the army barricade. Between trucks and armored cars, the soldiers stood on high alert, their backs to Times Square, guns pointing in his direction.
He pulled his head back in and gazed up at the glass-fronted tower beside him. If he could reach the top, perhaps he could find a way down to the other side. He’d scaled many tall buildings in Ballyhook, but never anything like this. As his eye traveled up the sheer glass face of the skyscraper he noticed how bright the sky had become. There was no time to think about it.
He darted down under some scaffolding opposite the building, then turned and faced the challenge that would really put his ability to the test. Taking a deep breath, he ran as fast as he could, praying that his momentum would take him to the top. Pushing himself harder than he’d ever done before, he hurtled dangerously toward the ground-floor windows. He shot up the glass wall, passing the first, second, third, and fourth floors with ease. After that, he felt his speed decreasing and he glanced up at the summit. But it was too far away—he wasn’t going to make it. Normally his momentum was enough to take him to the roof, but now, for the first time, he needed to accelerate while sky-running.
He forced power into his thighs and, though his muscles screamed in protest, his speed increased, taking him higher and higher up the office tower facade. Halfway up, he faced a new problem.
Wind whipped between the buildings, threatening to send him off course. He needed to maintain a straight line, because if he veered toward the corner of the building he was in serious trouble. He couldn’t change course midrun, and with nothing to grab on to, any deviation from his intended route could mean a four-hundred-foot plummet to certain death.
Leaning into the howling wind to compensate for how it pushed him off course, he summoned more power to his legs, bursting forward, higher and higher into the sky. His arms pumped like pistons, the weight of the sword slowing him down. His accelerations, however, became less and less effective as the roof got closer and his body drained of energy.
He screamed into the wind and willed his legs to push him across the last stretch of glass. Stepping up onto the roof, he balanced on the edge for a moment before flopping forward.
He didn’t know how long he would have lain there if he hadn’t heard Kate in his comm. “Cormac?”
He opened his eyes. “I’m fine.”
The sky was so bright he was sure he’d missed the sunrise, but when he stood he saw the radiance of the sun just below the horizon.
There was still time.
“Where are you?” asked Kate.
“On top of a skyscraper.”
He ran to the opposite side of the roof and gazed down. He’d never been in New York City before, but he imagined Times Square was never as empty as it was now. Not a single thing moved. There weren’t even soldiers down there.
The sound of a passing aircraft shifted his attention to the sky, but there was no sign of anything. Looking around, he saw a doorway off the roof and dashed over to it. The door was locked, but when he ran at it with his shoulder, it burst open. After racing down three flights of stairs he found an elevator. It pinged open when he pressed the button.
Inside, he watched the floor numbers count down, hoping he wouldn’t be too late. He still didn’t know what he was looking for or where to find it, but he did know he had only minutes before the sun was up.
On the ground floor, he found that all the doors and windows out onto Times Square were locked, but a fire exit gave him access to a narrow side street. He rushed down it and out into the middle of the huge intersection just as the first rays of the morning sun lanced across the rooftops.
In panic, he looked around the intersection, but there was nobody to be seen. The first rays of the sunrise warmed his face and cast his shadow, long and narrow, across the ground. Was he too late?
“COME AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS,” said the woman in the bandanna. “We’re not supposed to be in here.”
She led Kate across the empty hotel lobby and down a long corridor. As they walked, Kate heard noise—the murmur and hum of a large crowd. When the woman opened double doors into a conference room, Kate was faced with a huge gathering of people. They talked excitedly to one another, voices raised, faces angry. Many carried weapons: guns, knives, baseball bats.
“What is this?” asked Kate.
The woman picked up an iron bar that had tape wrapped around one end to form a club. “This is New Yorkers getting ready to protect their city. If those Empire Kats show up, we’ll chase ’em back out again.”
She left Kate and joined a woman and two men who were studying a large map spread out on a table. Kate grabbed a bread roll from a tray of food, took a bite, and found a quiet corner to feed Savage. As the little mouse devoured the bread, Kate put the comm in her ear. “Cormac?”
There was a moment of silence before Cormac answered, “I’m fine.”
“Where are you?”
“On top of a skyscraper.”
CORMAC’S PANIC TURNED HIS LEGS to liquid and his skin cold and clammy. He looked around again. And that’s when he saw the undulating black orb floating in midair. It was exactly like the portal he’d opened in medieval Japan.
The US army had obviously cordoned off Times Square as a potential target, but they were expecting visitors from the outside, not from within!
Cormac dashed toward a parked taxi and scrambled behind it. Peeping over the hood, he watched the orb increase in size as if it was being stretched from the other side.
Even on the flight here, he hadn’t thought about how he was going to do this. He’d presumed he would have Kate with him to help figure
it out. But now he was alone and needed to think fast. This could go one of three ways. One—he’d escape, with Ghost and the sword. Two—he’d escape, with just Ghost. Or three—they wouldn’t escape, and all three Swords of Sarumara would be in enemy hands.
The pool of black had grown to the size of a man. Kiko stepped through, face painted white, dressed in green. She turned toward the gateway of darkness from which she’d emerged, grasped a hand, and pulled it. Still in his shōzoku, Ghost allowed himself to be led through by Kiko. Cormac was so overcome with relief at seeing his friend still alive that he had to force himself not to run out and give him a hug. But Ghost now seemed to be a shadow of his former self, as if something had sucked the life out of him. His body was limp, his eyes dead. What had they done to him?
The portal wavered and began to shrink, but not before another face that Cormac recognized emerged from it. It was the face that had peered down at him every night from its frame on the wall of the Hinin House dormitory. It was the face he had met at the window on the top of Yosa Castle. It was Goda. Dressed in a red kimono and wearing two swords, he turned and watched the portal contract and disappear.
Cormac ducked down behind the taxi. How was he going to do this? If he revealed himself with the sword, Kiko and Goda could overpower him and take his one and only bargaining chip by force. He needed to hide the katana. Holding his breath, he pulled the taxi’s passenger door handle. Luckily it wasn’t locked and popped open easily. To Cormac’s ears, the noise it made sounded like a gunshot and he froze with the door half open. He peeped through the glass, but nobody looked his way.
He stashed the Moon Sword under the seat and eased the door shut. Perhaps now they wouldn’t harm him, for fear that they’d never find their precious sword. They weren’t to know it was only a few feet away.
Instinctively he reached for his crucifix and found it wasn’t there. Mum, Dad, wherever you are, help me make it out of this alive.
Cormac stepped out of hiding.
Kiko was the first to spot him. She pushed Ghost into Goda’s arms and stepped toward Cormac.
The Black Lotus Page 17
